Always In This Twilight
by octoberland
Summary: Just a little writing exercise. Short bits inspired by various prompts. Will likely all be vamp. Ratings will vary as will characters.
1. A Heart in Winter

**A/N: Sorry to be bombarding you guys with stuff this week. Hey, at least I'm writing right? I wrote a drabble the other day and latessitrice said I should post it. I was wary of posting something so short but then decided if I created a 'story' on here that would be a collection of drabbles it might be okay? So I'm going to try to do at least one drabble a week. The prompts won't come from one specific place. Sometimes they'll be picture prompts, other times word or quote prompts. If you want to throw a prompt my way go for it. The ratings and characters will vary from drabble to drabble and while I realize that technically a drabble is only supposed to be 100 words mine will likely be slightly longer. Sorry.**

**This first one is a photo prompt. I'll try to link the photo on my profile but in case you can't see it it's of a tree in winter. The sky is grey and there's no buildings or anything. It's very desolate looking.**

**All characters property of Stephenie Meyer. I'm not going to have these beta'd because it seems silly to have such short things beta'd. This is for fun and exercise. Not perfection. Special thanks to glasscannonlj for helping me choose the title for my drabble project. **

**Thanks for reading. Reviews are love and we all need love.**

Bella stood and looked out across the wasteland that used to be her home. You could hardly tell that anything had ever been here at all. The terrain stretched out before her, seemingly endless except for an occasional snow capped tree. They had been dead for decades along with the rest of the planet. Dead like her. Dry, desiccated, and standing alone in a barren landscape.

People try to tell you that being a vampire is glamorous. Back when there were people anyway. What they don't tell you is what happens once the food runs out. They don't tell you about the panic, about how everything falls apart and it becomes every man for himself, or about the eventual cannibalism that occurs. That's how she'd lost them, her family. That's how she came to be standing here alone in the only place she'd ever called home.

It wasn't like in the movies. She couldn't just walk into the sunlight and make it all go away. She hadn't seen another of her kind in years. There was no one to provoke, no royalty to smash the hammer of justice down upon her and erase her from existence. So she came here. The place where she had been truly born. The place where love had become something real and not just something in the pages of her books.

_Edward…_

She thought his name with sorrow, wondered where he was and hoped he had found Heaven. The pain she felt being separated from him nearly cleft her in two.

She lied down on the snow covered ground and closed her eyes. Her skin shimmered like the fine white snowflakes beneath her and the cold of her skin kept them from melting.

_I'll just rest awhile… _she thought to herself.

She began to sing softly:

_Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day; earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away; change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me._

"Abide with me, love," she whispered. "Abide with me…"

**Lyrics are from the hymn Abide With Me.**


	2. Happy Birthday

**A/N: Another drabble. This one is for Sarita. She challenged me to write something happy. Hopefully this suffices. My birthday was this past weekend so it seemed appropriate. I took some liberties with the canon as you'll see and have done a little AU scene. I'm still accepting prompts so if there's something you'd like to see throw it my way.**

**Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. Hope you're all well.**

"_I didn't spend a dime," Edward assured me. He brushed a strand of hair from my face, leaving my skin tingling from his touch._ New Moon

I opened the tiny box carefully. Inside, wrapped in delicate tissue paper, was a bottle cap, lemonade to be exact. I looked at Edward questioningly.

"Take it out," he said softly.

I did as he said. The bottle cap had been transformed into a necklace. The lip of the cap was flattened out and encircled in silver so that it looked like a picture frame and the chain was rugged looking. It was perfect, not too girly but not ugly either. I felt a faint itching in the back of my mind but I couldn't quite place why.

Edward took the pendant and ran his fingers over it gently. He smiled his knee weakening crooked smile and had a faraway look in his eyes.

"The first time we sat together at lunch I snagged this from you." He said.

Suddenly it came back to me. Jessica's disbelieving stare; Edward's disarming smile; our agreement to try to be friends. And him spinning my bottle cap, _this_ bottle cap.

"Y-you kept this?" I stammered. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. I could feel the tears coming.

"Yes," he replied. He took the necklace and placed it over my head and around my neck. It was just long enough to rest above my heart.

"I wanted to take a piece of you with me. I didn't know how things would turn out. All of this was so new to me. You could have decided to heed my warnings and never speak to me again."

"Are you glad I didn't?" I asked warily.

"Ecstatic," he said, grinning hugely. He pulled me into a hug and whispered into my hair. "I love you Isabella. I'll always love you."

I felt my heart beat faster. No matter how many times he said it I could never believe it. I was always waiting for the catch, for the bad news that was sure to come. Apparently it wasn't coming tonight though. Maybe this would be a happy birthday after all.


	3. Forgive Me Father

**A/N: Hello everyone. Another drabble. This one was inspired by a photo of a church. I know it's not super original but hey, this is just for fun and exercise.**

**I just discovered that one of my readers recently underwent heart surgery. Please keep her in your thoughts. Said reader has requested a tent scene so that will hopefully be the next thing to go up.**

**Feel free to keep throwing prompts my way. Reviews are love. And thanks for reading!**

Rochester, NY

1931

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned," said Edward, after he sat down in the small dark space. There was a heavy red velvet curtain separating him from the rest of the church but he could still see the dark polished wood of the interior gleaming in the faint light.

"How long has it been since your last confession, Son?" the Priest asked.

Edward paused.

"I don't remember," he finally answered in a hushed tone.

"You are always welcome in God's House," said the Priest in an effort to comfort his parishioner.

Edward suppressed a chuckle. He hadn't stepped foot in a church since his transformation and had half expected to burst into flames the moment he stepped over the threshold.

"Tell me your sins," said the Priest.

"I've…killed."

This gave the Priest pause. He'd never received such a confession before.

"Go on…" he encouraged.

"I can't." Edward looked away, frustrated.

"You must turn yourself in."

"I can't." said Edward. "I need you to forgive me."

"It is not my place to do that. That is in the Lord's hands. But you must do the right thing, the just thing. Think about the family…"

Edward laughed.

"Have you come here to mock God?" the Priest asked indignantly.

"No. I'm sorry. It's just…it's just that there's more than one."

"More than one murder?"

"Yes."

"I see."

"Do you?" asked Edward.

"Why did you come here tonight?" asked the Priest.

"I told you. For forgiveness"

"Are you sorry for what you've done?"

Edward's head dipped down in shame.

"More than I can ever say." He whispered.

"Then you must turn yourself in. It's the only way to find absolution."

"This was a mistake," said Edward. He started to rise.

"Wait," said the Priest.

Edward sat back down.

"Seeking counsel is never a mistake. Do you have anyone you can speak to about this?"

"My father," replied Edward.

"Your father? He knows?"

"Yes."

"And what does he say?"

"He forgives me."

"Your father is a man of compassion then."

"Very much so. It astounds me sometimes."

Edward could hear people shuffling just outside on the benches awaiting their turn.

"I must go Father." Edward stood in the small space as he readied to leave.

"I'm afraid there's no penance…" the Priest began to say but Edward cut him off.

"I understand. My penance is to live with the memories; every scream, every plea for their lives; every terror filled face is etched in my mind and will be long after you've turned to dust."

There was a moment of light as Edward swept aside the curtain to go. The Priest could just make out the profile of a young man in a dark suit. Edward's parting words sent a shiver down his spine and for all of his remaining days the Priest felt a small tinge of fear every time the confessional partition opened.


	4. Fate

**A/N: SO sorry it's been so long since I updated. A lot of real life stuff has been going on. Someone close to me passed away and I also recently acquired a boyfriend which has left me rather, um, *busy*. I am going to try to get back into this now. If I missed replying to your review you have my sincerest apologies. I'll post a link to the prompt for this one in my profile. I'm still accepting prompts even though I'm behind in them. I promise that I will get to all of them eventually. Anyway, hope you enjoy and hope you are all well.**

Her red eyes stare at me

And she is fire and spit and dark things

I try to tell myself that this is fate

That it will be all right

But when she's like this

I wonder why fate can be so cruel

In the fire consumes

In the fire, humanity lost

I have done the deed and paid the price

And now you are the fire to my ice

"Have faith," you said

In this, in me, in you

But when my world spins

And atoms collide

When my fingers ache to touch

I am reminded of my sin

You scream

And it's a knife to my heart

Your body bends and breaks

And my eyes cannot look

Your heart stops

And I stop with it

Her eyes are fire

And I am burnt

To my very soul

**A/N: A couple of real life writing things that I can't remember if I mentioned or not. I have a story in the upcoming anthology Made You Flinch edited by Bill Tucker. I don't know the release date yet but I'll keep you posted. I also created a fan page on Facebook. I did not do this to be pretentious. Facebook is the one that calls them fan pages. I did it so people can keep up with my writing related stuff without having to friend my personal account. Anyway, I'll post a link on my FFnet profile.**


	5. Dream

**Sooo...it's been awhile. There's a few reasons for that. Mostly real life stuff. I'm going through a big change in my personal life right now (and have been for the last few months) and it's taken up a lot of my time. Hopefully, theoretically, it will all sort itself out in the next couple of weeks and allow me to get back to a normal life schedule. But fandom, well, fandom got me down too for a few reasons. And as most of you know I'm rather sensitive and it's easy to knock me off my feet. I haven't really been doing much writing though I do miss it very much. That being said, I need a beta. I don't really feel comfortable posting much of anything without one. And that being said, I'm super picky. Said beta must have excellent spelling and grammar skills and be willing to provide content feedback.**

**Anyway, this is from a drabble prompt. I'll post a link to the image on my profile. This is obviously a poem though I can never get FFnet to properly format poetry so please forgive that. And obviously it's not beta'd so please forgive that too.**

**Reviews are love and we all need love.**

Last night I dreamt I was human

I stood in a chapel, or abbey, or church

You came to me

Hungry

At first I was afraid

I didn't want to die

But then you spoke words so gentle

That I let my guard down

I felt my soul

Respond to yours

I felt my body

Spark at your touch

You could have been the devil for all I cared

I simply knew in that moment

That I was yours

Damned or not

I went with you

Willingly

Into that darkness

Into your arms

So I know now

That were I human

Were the tables turned

I'd have done for you

What you did for me

**A/N: Obviously I took some liberties here. Hopefully you can forgive that too.**

**I know a number of you have been contacting me about various stories. As I've always said and will continue to say, it is not my intention to abandon anything. I just don't feel comfortable posting without a beta. Your continued support and patience is most appreciated and I really appreciate all the messages and sincerely hope you are all well.**


	6. Let's Get Lost

**A/N: Yes, I'm alive. Barely. There's been a few close calls. This is the first thing I've written in over a year and I cannot promise when next I'll be able to write. But I did promise I wouldn't give up and I meant it. More than likely I have lost most of my readers but if you've stuck around then you have my utmost appreciation.**

**To refresh people's memories and inform new readers, Always in this Twilight is simply a collection of drabbles posted sans beta so they're quality might not be great. I don't know. You tell me. I am, however, still taking requests meaning that if there's something you'd like me to write a drabble about please tell me. It could be a scene, something inspired by a picture or as in this case, a song.**

**Reader LanaLee1 requested this. It is inspired by the song Let's Get Lost from the Eclipse soundtrack. I always thought it was weird that this song was used during a Jacob scene so for this I used Edward. I hope you feel it works. Thank you, LanaLee1 for the prompt.**

**As always, all characters are property of Stephenie Meyer. Please review? And thank you for reading. You have my apologies for being so absent.**

If I said that I never fantasized about her it would be a lie. But I would never admit that to anyone. I can barely admit it to myself. Me, the chaste one. Never touched and never been touched. I'm not supposed to have these kinds of thoughts. I feel guilty having these thoughts. No one suspects. Especially not her. In fact, I know that she believes I do not desire her but nothing could be further from the truth.

At night when I hold her, and her words come tumbling out while she sleeps, it becomes nearly unbearable. I want to tell her. I want to tell her how badly I want her, that I've wanted her from nearly the beginning. It's been over a year and I'm still at war with myself, torn between my desires as a man and those of the monster inside me. I still remember the first time I allowed myself such baser thoughts though they're innocent in comparison to the ones I have now. A simple blush or sweep of her hair or featherlight kiss just doesn't cut it anymore.

I want more. I want skin on skin. For real. Not through our clothes but heat and cold, hard and soft igniting each other. I want to kiss. To truly kiss her, tongues and passion and nothing held back and all the things that leads to. I want her in my bed. I want us to be normal teenagers groping each other, exploring, fumbling and eventually ecstatic. I want us to get lost in each other.

But we can't. Because I would lose control. Because I could kill her. For now I cannot say what I want, what I should not.

That I want you, Bella. That in my own ways I dream about you the way a man dreams of a woman. I imagine holding your fragile body in my arms, cupping the curve of your waist and pulling your body to mine instead of pushing you away.

For now they will have to remain just that though. Dreams. Dreams for a rainy night away from you. Dreams for when I watch you sleep. Dreams a monster shouldn't dream.


	7. Gianna

**A/N: Hi everyone. So we're playing a little writing game over in A Different Forest and someone dared me to write a drabble using the word "nougat". This is what I came up with. I hope you like it. I'd still love to get more prompts so feel free to throw me a word or picture or song or what have you. I'd love the challenge and inspiration!**

**As always, all characters are property of Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Reviews are love and we all need love. Please leave a review?**

Gianna walked around the reception area scanning it for anything that might be out of place. Her employers were, among other things, perfectionists. She looked at the furniture. If it was even a centimeter off she would be reprimanded. She checked the fake plants, the plastic ferns and silken flowers for dust. All seemed well and that was good.

As she neared what she liked to call the Great Room she noticed something small and shiny on the floor. She knelt down carefully, as a lady should, and picked up the tiny object. It was a piece of candy, nougat, or _Torrone_ as it was known locally. A confection made of honey and eggs and nuts. Normally she avoided eating sweets in an effort to watch her figure (beauty was also highly valued by her employers) but today she decided what the heck? If things turned out as she planned she wouldn't be able to enjoy things like this for much longer anyway.

As she walked back towards her desk she unwrapped the candy and popped it in her mouth. It was chewy and sweet and brought a smile to her lips.

She paid no mind to the screams coming from beyond the doors leading to the Great Room. Not even the screams of the children could distract her from her happy little moment.


	8. Tiger

**A/N: This prompt was provided by and therefore is dedicated to Pam. Thanks Pam! The prompt was the word "tiger". I used it to write a silly little scene that's a bit of an alternative to one in the book/movie. One line is taken directly from the book. It should be easy to figure out which one. Hopefully you'll enjoy this. There's no warnings for this one. It's vamp. Main character is Edward but Jessica and Emmett feature prominently as well.**

**As always all characters are property of Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.**

**Reviews are love and we all need love. Also, please give me more prompts? Thanks for reading!**

"I hear he's a real tiger in bed."

This from Jessica Stanley, resident gossip and God's gift to the male population of Forks High, or so she would have you think. In actuality she'd never so much as made out with a boy. She was walking into the lunchroom with a girl with long blonde hair and another who wore glasses.

"Dude!" Emmett elbowed me in the ribs. "I think she likes you!" he said, referring to Jessica's comment. "If she only knew…" he continued.

"Emmett," I chided. The last thing I wanted was to entertain the silly romantic notions these girls had about me. She was right, of course. I was a tiger in bed. I could tear her to shreds before I'd even realized what I'd done.

_Oh, great_… I thought to myself. Jessica Stanley was walking right towards us.

"Hi!" she said in that effervescent way that only teenagers and airheads were capable of. She actually bounced when she said it and waved her hand emphatically.

"Hiiii…" said Emmett while wrapping his arm around my shoulder. "I'm Emmett and this is my brother, Edward." He said, nodding his head in my direction. He had a huge grin plastered on his face. Emmett's second favorite thing in the world was fucking with me. His first favorite thing was fucking Rose but that's another story for another time.

"I'm Jessica!" she said in a bubbly excited voice, smiling right back at us. She held her hand out in introduction.

I just stared at her tiny hand. If I shook it she'd feel how cold we were.

"Don't mind Edward," said Emmett. "He's just a prude."

"Oh." She giggled nervously, still holding her hand out.

We were beginning to draw much more attention than I was comfortable with.

"Emmett, we should go join the others," I said, nodding my head towards the table where the rest of my siblings were seated. There was the aforementioned Rose, and Jasper, and Alice. Alice, my favorite, gave me a sympathetic look.

"Well, I guess I better get back to my friends," said Jessica once she realized I wasn't even looking at her, never mind shaking her hand. Her tone was decidedly less bubbly now. She lowered her outstretched hand and turned on her heels.

"Dude, you blew it," said Emmett, in a mocking tone. He removed his arm from around my shoulder and sauntered over to our table. As I followed suit I heard Jessica speaking again, this time to a new girl I didn't recognize.

"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him."


	9. December 14th, 2012

**A/N: This is not an easy read. It wasn't easy to write. I know some people hate long author's notes so I'll write a little more at the end instead of taking up space here. I got the idea for this short piece the day of the Newtown shootings. It is an interpretation of that and every other school shooting during my lifetime. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the families and victims of that tragedy or any other school tragedy. As I have often said with other difficult works I've written I ask you, the reader, to bear with me and trust me if you can. I have tried not to be too graphic but the subject matter is what it is. If you found yourself traumatized by the shootings you might not want to read this.**

**All characters property of Stephenie Meyer.**

Esme was just pulling into the school parking lot when the first shots were fired. Unlike the rest of her family she had no special abilities. She had no way of predicting what was happening. She could not peer into the minds of others to see what they saw. She could not feel the emotions of the students inside. But she knew, with the instinct of someone who was meant to be a mother, that something was terribly, terribly wrong. This instinct was confirmed mere seconds later when she heard the first screams and then more shots.

She flung open the car door nearly tearing it off its hinges in the process. It was another cold wet day in Forks, Washington. The misty air clung to her hair and clothes immediately dampening them. The moist air always amplified the natural smells from the forest around them but now it was amplifying another scent, a much more potent one: the smell of blood, rich and fresh, rust and metal and copper on her tongue. Somewhere inside that building children were dying. Not her children though. No, she wasn't worried about them. Bullets wouldn't even make them flinch. But the other children, the human ones, they wouldn't be so lucky.

She ran towards the school careful to keep her pace normal so as not to draw undue attention. Two girls burst out of the main door. They were crying and clinging to each other and running in a strange ducked down sort of way.

"You can't go in there!" one of them screamed hoarsely while she grabbed onto Esme.

"He's trying to kill us…" the other choked out between sobs.

"Here," Esme said as calmly as possible. She shoved her purse at them. "My phone's in there. Call 911. That's my car towards the back, the blue four door. It's unlocked. The key's in the ignition. Call 911 and then get out of here."

"You can't go in there!" they insisted.

"I'll be fine," she replied in her most soothing voice. "Now go."

The girls hobbled away stealing furtive glances back to make sure they weren't being pursued. Esme could hear them fumbling around in her purse, then she heard the unmistakable electronic sound of a cell phone being dialed, and then the sound of her car starting and screeching away.

She slipped quietly into the building. It smelled of pencils and paper and bad food and the sweat of teenagers, sour in some places and sweet in others. She could hear more crying, could hear feet scampering here and there. There was the sound of chairs scraping across floors as they were used to barricade doors. She heard more people on phones calling the authorities or in some cases their parents or boyfriends and girlfriends. Then more shots and the sound of bones being shattered and organs rendered. Something only her kind would have been able to hear. A small mercy that but something she and her "children" would remember with perfect clarity for the duration of their existence.

As she walked down the hall she clung to the sides and edged her way along instead of walking with confidence straight down the middle. Because of this she was able to escape the notice of the shooter. She slid into a crevice between the wall and a stand of lockers when he stumbled out into the hallway.

He was just a boy himself. She couldn't fathom it even though she knew this was a growing phenomenon. He had dark unruly hair that stuck to his face and neck, sticky with perspiration. He wore black clothes that appeared to be military issue and carried what she was sure was a rifle. His heart beat frantically and she could easily smell the adrenaline and fear coming off him. She had been so engrossed in studying him that she didn't notice the sirens until they were just outside the parking lot. The boy heard them too. He took off out the side door and ran towards the woods that surrounded the school. She had no idea what his plan was but she knew she had to follow him. She couldn't let him get away.

She sprinted after him keeping just enough distance so as not to be seen by him but moving fast enough that she would hopefully go unnoticed by anyone else that may be looking. Once they entered the woods she could sense her family converging on him. Alice, Jasper, Edward, Rose, and Emmett were all there, all intent on stopping him. She felt a vague moment of helplessness and annoyance. She couldn't explain it but she needed to be the one to catch the boy.

"He's mine," she said. She spoke no louder than she would have to anyone standing next to her but they all heard.

Edward began to protest as did Emmett but Alice stopped them both. With a slight sad nod of her head she communicated to them what was going to happen more deeply than mere words could have.

One by one Esme heard them fall back though they barely made a sound. The shooter on the other hand sounded like an elephant trundling through the forest. Branches snapped and pine needles crunched under foot as he ran. Eventually she heard him stop. His breathing was labored and she could hear him crying.

When she came upon him he was sitting with his back resting against a giant mossy tree. His face was blotchy and smeared with dirt from the trees and bushes he'd run through. He had the rifle on the ground next to him and was holding a handgun. He kept raising and lowering the handgun, placing the barrel in his mouth and squeezing his eyes shut, and then crying and removing it and then he'd repeat. He was trying to work up the courage to kill himself.

Esme stepped into the small clearing and purposefully stepped on a stray branch so it would snap and draw attention to her presence. She wore a simple flowered dress and flats. To human eyes she would have looked like any other child's mother. But she wasn't any other child's mother. She wasn't even human, something the boy figured out quickly.

He raised his gun at her and fired immediately. She could have outrun the bullets but she didn't see the point in such a gross display of talent. His fate had been decided long ago and she saw no need to drag it out.

The bullets bounced off of her, tearing small holes in her clothes as they went. The boy's eyes went wide once he realized she was unharmed. He screamed at her.

"What are you?! Get away from me!"

She walked towards him slowly and as she did so he backed himself further against the tree as though he could somehow climb up and away from her. Once he was out of bullets he threw the gun at her in a last ditch effort to make her go away.

"What's your name?" she asked him when she was just an arm's length away from him. She spoke quietly, softly, in the way one would to an injured animal.

He was crying in earnest now.

"Mine's Esme," she said when he didn't reply. "Please, tell me yours."

If she was going to kill him she wanted to know his name. It seemed only right to her that she carry that piece of him along with his death.

"J..josh…" he choked out between sobs.

"It's going to be alright, Josh," she said as she took another step towards him.

"Stay away from me!" he sputtered as tears and snot slid down his face.

"You're in so much pain, aren't you?" she whispered.

"Come here," she said as she opened her arms to him. "Come here, Josh. I'm not going to hurt you."

She saw a flicker of hope in his eyes and she felt a pang of guilt. She was going to hurt him. She was going to take his life away from him the way he had taken it from others. She couldn't think of what else to do. Let him run away? Let the cops find him and surely kill him? Let him go down in a spray of gunfire and rage possibly taking more innocent lives with him? No. She couldn't allow that. She had the power to end it all now and end it relatively peacefully.

He reached for her tentatively and for a moment she could see the child in him, the one he used to be. She imagined him at Christmas time, settled under a tree decked with ornaments, in footie pajamas and eyes alight with glee. She imagined him riding a bike for the first time or learning how to swim. She imagined his first crush, awkward and unfulfilled. She didn't know if any of this was accurate. She knew nothing about his life but at one point in time he was helpless, small, frail and innocent like any other child. She was sure of that.

She embraced him, held him warmly, if just for a moment, as any mother would her child. Then, swiftly, as painlessly as she could, she twisted his head so that his neck snapped in just the right place. His breathing stopped first, the nerves controlling that function having been severed. He blacked out quickly. It was only a matter of time until the rest of his body caught up with the fact that he was a dead man.

Until then, she held him, crumpled on the forest floor, rocking him back and forth, crying invisible tears for all the suffering that had transpired that day.

**A/N: I am, for the most part, a pacifist. My heroes are Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi. By writing this I do not mean to be preachy at all. I am not saying pacifism is the only right way. I'm not saying killers don't deserve to have justice meted out. The day of the shootings I just had this vision of Esme being at school when something like this happened. I know that might sound really stupid. Why on earth would someone think of fic during times like that? But most writers will tell you that we work this stuff out by writing about it. I can't wrap my head around why this happens. It wasn't like this when I was a kid. We didn't have shootings or metal detectors or guards in school. Things have changed and I don't know why.**

**I read something in a book long ago. It was a cheesy self-help book but this one bit of advice stuck with me. To remember that everyone was a child once. Every criminal, every person that pisses you off or hurts you was a child once. A child with toys who laughed and dreamed and at least for a while knew nothing of the monsters in the world or the monsters they might become. I thought of this the day of the shootings. And I wondered what Esme might do, how conflicted she might feel, but ultimately I've always thought of her as someone compassionate. So I wrote this.**

**I do not mean this to be any sort of argument about gun control or anything like that. Nor do I mean to make light of what happened or take advantage of it. I hope you'll find that this was written respectfully but if not you have my apologies.**


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